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

I’m close enough that the sparkling light from my fuses plays across their shoulders and catches on their faces as the man and the boy turn toward me.

I recognize them.

The man, the one I surprised on the path, is Francisco, who said all those horrible things to me about Daniel being worthless and girls being a curse. The boy is his son, Guillermo.

For a stunned moment I freeze where I am, staring at them. Part of me is hoping against hope that I’ve seen wrong, that somehow this will turn out to be a misunderstanding. How could they rob their own cooperative?

“Go away!” shouts Guillermo in a rough, ugly voice. “Leave us alone. This isn’t your business.”

I realize two things.

First, I realize that neither of them has recognized me.

Then, somewhere deep in my brain, I hear the devil laughing. It reminds me of the dream where I challenged him for my life and Daniel’s. It makes me glance at my hand and realize the second thing: that I’m still holding two lit sticks of explosives and the fuses are gone.

The dynamite is about to blow up.

Francisco’s and Guillermo’s eyes shift with mine, and everything happens at once. The two of them dart in opposite directions. I hurl the dynamite high into the air, hoping it will detonate where it can’t hurt anyone, and leap toward Belén. I hit the ground hard and curl around her slumped form, shielding her with my body.

I look up just in time to see that, while Francisco sprinted to hide behind the toolshed, Guillermo ran for cover in the mine. The two sticks of dynamite curve in almost graceful arcs through the air and land with a gentle thud on my lookout ledge, where I’d left the other six sticks.

And then, like in my worst dreams, all the dynamite explodes, shearing off the ledge and part of the cliff face, trapping Guillermo inside.

My heart stops.

I can’t breathe, can’t think.

Francisco crosses the distance between us and grabs me by the arm, dragging me onto my feet. “Idiot!” He shakes me. “What have you done?”

“Let me go!” I shriek, pulling away from him. Then I change my mind. “No. Actually, come with me.” I twist in his arms and lurch toward the collapsed mine entrance. “You have to help me! We have to get him out!”

Francisco lets go of me, his glare icy.

I get to the buried entrance and scrabble at the highest chunks of rock I can reach. I pull them off the pile, causing tiny rubble avalanches. Francisco and I have to dance backward out of the way so that our feet don’t get buried. The angle of the heap shifts slightly, but I’m no closer to the tunnel behind it.

“You,” Francisco says, finally recognizing my face in the moonlight now that he’s had a good chance to look at me. “You witch! Causing one disaster wasn’t enough? Now you’ve caused two!”

“There’s no time for that now! Didn’t you see? Your son is trapped in there! We have to dig him out.”

Francisco spits at me and makes a gesture to ward against the evil eye. Then, to my complete astonishment, he starts to jog away.

“Where are you going?” I shriek after him. “He’s your son. You can’t just leave him here!”

Francisco’s glance flicks to the pile beside me, and for a moment I think maybe he has a shred of human decency in him, but his eyes are emptier than the mountain.

“He was far back in the tunnel. And that noise is going to bring people—they can help you.”

And with no more than that, he turns away and, grabbing a bulky sack off the ground that I hadn’t noticed until just now, vanishes into the night.

I know I need to push my bleeding fingers into the jagged gaps between the rocks blocking the mine shaft and dig. I know I need to go over to Belén and make sure she’s breathing.

I know these things, but my hands are shaking and a terrible pressure is welling up inside me. Without ever having given myself permission to begin crying, I sink down and bury my face in my hands. The rock fragments on my palms feel like sandpaper against my cheeks. The wetness of my tears leaks through the cracks between my fingers.

“Hey,” says a soft voice. A hand on my shoulder shakes me gently.

I jerk away, startled. My hands splay on the rocks behind me and I blink back the tears, trying to see clearly who has found me. Is it another thief, or some drunken miner come to make my troubles even greater? I scrub a hand across my face, blinking furiously against the grit scratching them, and take in the person standing in front of me.

“V-Victor?”

I must sound as confused as I feel, because Victor gives an embarrassed shrug.

“Sorry it took me a minute to come over,” he says. “I went to check on the little girl first.”

Sniffling, I glance over to the rock face where Francisco slammed Belén. Sure enough, I see that she’s been moved and has been propped up slightly, so that her head is higher than her heart.

Victor starts pulling chunks of rock off the pile, two hands at a time, and my hands begin moving automatically, matching his. I feel like maybe it’s me who’s been hit on the head. Why can’t I think?

I turn back to Victor.

“Wait . . . how . . . ?” I swallow and make myself start over. “What are you doing here?”

“I, um, I came back up to get something I’d forgotten at home.”

I flick a glance up to the ridge, where I can see the dark outline of Victor’s old house. “In the middle of the night?”

Victor ducks his head. “Yeah, well, I’m not really supposed be back here. Papi never paid the last month’s rent before he died. The landlord padlocked all our things inside.” His voice is so low it’s almost a whisper. “I was just leaving when I heard shouting . . . and then blasting.