Treasure of the World by Tara Sullivan (best romantic books to read txt) 📗

“Far away from the rocks and the cold. We’ll both make lots of money and eat until we’re fat and be happy forever.”

Daniel’s laugh is hollow. “That’s all just a stupid kid’s dream, Ana. Neither one of us is ever going to make it off this mountain.”

I let the fake smile slip off and really look at him. At his thin shoulders he’s hunching so tightly and his delicate face he’s scrunched into a scowl.

“You’ve never said that before.”

“Well, it’s true,” he says softly. “Dreams are for little kids. I’m not a little kid anymore. Didn’t you hear Papi at dinner? I’m a man of the mines now.”

I don’t like thinking of my brother as a man. Men are big and scary. They drink beer and liquor and hit their wives when they’re angry. I don’t want Daniel to have to be anything other than Daniel: a bit annoying, a bit of a mischief-maker, but still my brother.

“Daniel,” I ask, trying to move away from whatever has put that emptiness in his voice, “what makes those kid dreams?”

“Huh?”

I bump him with my shoulder. He turns to face me.

“What makes those kid dreams?” I ask again.

He considers my question.

“I guess . . . I mean, I’m nearly twelve now, like you. When we were like seven or five or whatever, we used to think that things would get better—poof! But now . . . now we know that’s not going to happen, right? They’re kid dreams because we just imagined ourselves into a city or onto a farm. But we have no way of actually getting there. That’s what makes them fake.”

“You’re right,” I nod. “What we need isn’t a dream, it’s a plan.”

“A plan,” he repeats. Tasting the idea; trying it on.

“Yes,” I say firmly. “A plan with actual steps that will get us off this stupid mountain for good.”

A yawn cracks Daniel’s face. “Okay, Ana,” he says. “You let me know when you come up with one.”

“You should lie down again and try to sleep,” I tell him.

“Whatever, Mami,” Daniel teases. But he does what I suggest anyway.

As I roll into my blankets beside him, I even out my breathing to encourage him to do the same. I know he’ll need his sleep if he’s to face another day in the mines tomorrow. But long after Daniel finds an uneasy sleep, I lie awake, trying to come up with a plan to buy my brother back the life he should never have had to give up.

The next day starts the same as the one before it: Papi and Daniel head off to the mines, I head off to school, Mami and Abuelita hunker down to break rocks. Again, I struggle to focus on my work at school, though at least I do remember to get an assignment for Daniel from the teacher this time. Given how tired he was last night, I don’t know that he’ll have the energy to learn after a day spent in the mines, but I get it for him anyway.

The afternoon breaking rocks with Mami and Abuelita stretches for what feels like forever, especially when the end of shift comes and goes and there is no sign of Papi or Daniel. The three of us work quietly, side by side, waiting. But as dusk draws closer and closer and they’re still not home, Mami gives up pretending to work and starts down the road to find out what happened to them, leaving us without a word.

Abuelita and I glance at each other.

“I guess I’ll go start dinner,” I say.

Grabbing the beaten metal pot on my way out of the house, I fill it from the blue plastic barrel of water beside the door and walk over to our little clay stove. As I struggle to light it, I wrinkle my nose at the metallic tang of the water and the smell of the animal dung. We get the water from a little stream a short walk away, but it mixes with the runoff from the mines and always smells strange. If we go down to the city of Potosí, we can get clean water from taps, but then we have to carry the heavy cans back up the mountain. That water doesn’t last very long.

Mami told me that when she was a little girl, before her father moved their family up to the Cerro, chasing a mineral boom, she lived in the valley. There, fires were made from wood and twigs and had the most wonderful-smelling smoke. Her family’s farm was small but full of color. She would get all dreamy-eyed remembering it and wave her hands around as if she could paint a picture of it in the air for us. In some ways, Mami loves stories as much as Abuelita does; she just likes to talk about the way things are, not the way they were hundreds of years ago. Green waves would turn into silvery sheets of barley at harvest time, she would tell us as she tucked us in at night. The dark earth tumbled out piles of brown and yellow potatoes, and the tall quinoa stalks wore tufts of purple, and red, and gold, each crowned like a king. I always wished I could see it. Our mountain is only painted in bands of black and brown and rusty red, and I’ve never smelled woodsmoke. The Cerro Rico is high, high above the tree line, so there are no trees or bushes to burn. I feel the old anger against this mountain well up in me and it makes my fingers clumsy. I push too hard on my match and not only does it break, but the rest of the packet falls into the pot of water at my feet.

“Dammit!”

I fish the soggy box out of the water and shove the heels of my hands into my eyes to keep myself from crying. They’re only matches, I tell myself severely. They don’t matter. But they’re also our only box of matches, and