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

hear a soft gasp from Mami. Abuelita starts to mutter quietly under her breath. She’s probably praying, but I don’t look over at them. My eyes are glued to Daniel.

He’s frozen, his spoon halfway to his mouth. Then he puts down his spoon and bowl on the ground beside him.

“What’s this?” he manages, his voice slightly choked. His hands hover over the clothes, like he’s afraid to touch them.

“Pedro Sánchez is bringing his boy to work,” Papi says gruffly, scraping the last of the pot of soup into his bowl and chewing. “I got César to approve a second slot on the shift. Since he was adding one boy, I figured I could get him to add two. You start tomorrow.”

There is a beat where it feels like no one breathes; the only sound, Papi’s slurp and chew as he works his way through his second helping.

Daniel’s hands settle on the coveralls. He doesn’t say anything.

“Mauricio . . .” Mami starts softly, hesitantly.

Papi’s eyes snap to her, the hardness of the mountain in his stare.

“He’s so young,” Mami goes on. I’m biting the inside of my mouth again. She is brave, so brave! With Papi’s attention on me like that, I would never keep talking. “The Sánchez boy, Victor, he’s older. Let Daniel go to school a little bit longer. We have enough to get by, especially if the price of mineral is going up; we’ll be fine. And you know he’s not strong . . .”

Papi slaps his open palm onto the floor beside him. We all flinch. Mami stops talking. Daniel doesn’t say anything, but I can see his fingers tightening in the material in his lap. His knuckles are turning white.

“No one says a son of mine is weak.” Papi slaps the floor again. “No one says he’s only slightly better than an invalid or a girl.”

None of us have said anything like this, so it must be something he overheard at work. My wide eyes dart to Daniel. Papi is a proud man. There’s no way we’ll talk him out of it if he thinks Daniel staying home somehow makes him look bad.

“I say it’s time for him to go,” Papi shouts. “He’s going.”

Mami might be about to say something more, but Daniel gets to his feet. He bunches the material of the suit in his fists.

“It’s fine, Mami,” he says. “I’ll do it.”

Then he turns and goes to our bed and curls up in the blankets like a pill bug that has been poked, his back to us.

“That’s my boy!” says Papi loudly, but none of us answer and the rest of the evening passes in a tense silence.

Even after Papi falls asleep, we don’t say anything, afraid to wake him, but Mami cries quietly as she cleans the dishes. When I’m done with my chores, I go outside, even though it’s cold, and stare up the starlit path. This morning I said the price of mineral would go up and it did. Then, this afternoon, I had worried that we were running out of time. And now Papi is making Daniel leave school and join him at work. I feel like I jinxed us. That, by saying my fears out loud, I brought the attention of the devil of the mines or the Pachamama or whoever upon us and they made Papi make this decision. I bury my head in my arms and try to think of a way out of this. Nothing good has come out of anything I’ve said, but just in case the magic pattern holds, I speak out loud to the stars.

“Papi and Don Sánchez will change their minds, and Victor and Daniel will be allowed to come back to school.” I squeeze my eyes shut and will it to be true, but nothing immediately changes. Eventually, the wind forces me inside. I lie on the pile of blankets I share with Daniel and Abuelita and curl around my brother, hugging him close to give him what heat I can. I drift off to sleep to the rattle of his breathing.

The next morning, when Mami shakes me awake to make the tea, Papi is already up, brash and happy even through his hangover. Daniel knocks his tea back in three quick gulps the way the miners drink liquor at a funeral. Papi sips his tea and laughs, all smiles again now that he’s gotten his way.

“You’ll do fine,” he’s saying to Daniel, patting his hunched shoulders. “I spoke to César and he’s going to start you on his team. César will take good care of you.”

Daniel doesn’t answer and I can see the tight lines along his face from where he’s holding in his words by sheer force. Usually, when Papi’s sober, Daniel sasses all of us freely. It’s who he is. With him quiet, I’m not sure whether to talk or not.

“We shouldn’t even be on this mountain,” Abuelita breaks in, her voice sounding extra thin this morning. I pour her some more tea to soothe her throat. “Our people.”

“What’s that?” Papi asks her, the smile on his face looking like an afterthought.

“When the Inca ruled this land, the emperor had miners working all over his empire.”

I settle back and sip my tea. When she uses that rolling tone, Abuelita is launching into a story. I’m glad. It’s got to be better than anything else we’d talk about this morning.

“But when Huayna Capac, the Incan emperor, came to this mountain, planning to dig for silver,” Abuelita goes on, “the land heaved and rolled beneath his feet, and an echoing voice came from the earth. It said, You shall not mine here! This silver is meant for others.” She throws her arms wide, indicating how big the voice was, and even though her own voice doesn’t get any louder, it’s almost like I can hear the mountain booming its command at the emperor. “And the emperor listened,” she says, settling her hands around her cup of tea again, “and decreed that this hill