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

was never to be mined. And that’s where this whole region got its name—the emperor named the mountain Potoc’xi, a thunderous noise.”

I can’t help myself. “I thought you said the Inca called it Sumaj Orcko, beautiful hill?”

“Beautiful is for emperors who don’t need to work in order to eat,” Papi says flatly. His smile is a dish left out too long that has started to spoil. “The Spaniards called it the Cerro Rico: the rich hill.”

“The miners call it the Mountain That Eats Men.” Daniel’s voice is barely a whisper.

“All names are true,” Abuelita says before Papi can answer Daniel. “The prophecy given to Huayna Capac was fulfilled, because then the Spaniards came and conquered the Inca, and took the silver for themselves. So much silver that, had they wanted to, they could have built a solid silver bridge from Bolivia, across the Atlantic Ocean, all the way to Spain, and still had enough left to carry across it to give to their greedy king.”

“And what exactly does this have to do with anything?” Papi’s definitely not smiling anymore.

“We are descendants of the Inca.” She points a finger at Papi, the way she must have when he was still a small boy and had to mind her. “We were never supposed to mine this mountain. The earth itself decreed it and only sorrow has met those who go against the decrees of la Pachamama.” She meets his eyes. “Leave the boy. Let him go to school.”

Papi’s eyebrows scrunch in a scowl and I want to shrink into myself. None of us ever speaks out against him. Papi glares at his mother. Abuelita holds her chin high and meets his gaze. Daniel, Mami, and I sit like statues, eyes darting between them.

Papi stands up and grabs his helmet. “Legends and nonsense,” he growls, and walks out the door, barking for Daniel to follow him.

Mechanically, Daniel gets to his feet. He picks up his new helmet and buckles the attached acetylene tank to his belt. Mami hands him a satchel with water and coca leaves in it and kisses his forehead. Without a word to any of us, eyes still on the ground, Daniel walks out the door.

With them gone, it feels like a bubble of tension has popped. Abuelita sags where she sits, clutching her teacup. Blinking away tears, Mami grabs a comb and steers me onto the stool in front of her.

“Mami, I can comb my own hair.”

“Hush,” she says, and I leave it at that because, though we both know that I’m able to do this for myself, it feels nice to let her baby me. Plus, I realize I can give her a gift by letting her do my hair. At least then she can feel like she’s been allowed to take care of one of her children this morning.

Pulling out the messy braid I slept in, she starts to drag the comb through my thick black hair, starting at the bottom and working her way up so as not to yank on the snarls.

“He’ll never make it,” says Abuelita softly.

Mami’s hands pause for a second, then keep up their smooth movement. “He’ll be okay for just a few days,” she says. “With any luck, by then Mauricio will see that he’s not made for mining.”

“You really think Papi will change his mind?” I ask her.

“Well, it’s happened before,” she says. “Your father . . . he can be very stubborn, but he can change his mind too. You might not remember—you were only five—but he didn’t want to let you go to school.”

“Really?” This is news to me.

“Mmm-hmm.” Mami dips the comb in water and slicks it through my hair. “Do you remember, Elvira?”

“Oh, do I ever,” says Abuelita. “He went on and on. He said that his mother hadn’t gone to school, and his wife had barely gone to school. He wasn’t about to send his daughter there.” She deepens her voice, imitating Papi: “She could be more useful around the house. Besides, a girl is just going to get married and have babies. What’s the point in wasting time sending them to school when they could be working?”

I feel a twist of anxiety when I hear her say that. It’s not something we talk about, but I know, along with leaving school to work, that it’s expected I will get married and leave the house. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. Marriage is a cave-in you can’t dig out from under.

“So what happened?” I ask, to move the conversation away from my future marriage. “How did you change his mind?”

Mami’s fingers gather the hair at my crown and start weaving it into a tight braid. “Little by little, over time. Your grandmother would lament the things she wasn’t able to do because she never got an education, and I’d tell him how much I wanted you to be smarter than I was, how important it was for me. We’d talk about the possibilities it would open up for you. I think we even started to complain about how you were always underfoot and how much more work we’d get done if we could just get you out of the house for a few hours each day.” I can hear the smile in her voice even though I can’t see it.

“Eventually,” says Abuelita, “he came around. And, once you were going, it was easier to just let you go and keep everyone happy.”

“So, you see”—Mami ties off the end of the braid and lays her hands on my shoulders, dropping a quick kiss on my cheek—“there is hope, mi hija. We’ll work on changing your father’s mind. Until then, we just need to keep Daniel encouraged and try not to anger your Papi too much, okay?”

“I’ll try,” I say.

Half an hour later, hair scraped into a braid so tight and perfect that the skin on my face feels stretched and my eyes pull at the corners, I leave for school, retracing the steps I