Isabela Amaya's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Isabela Amaya knelt in the attic dust and put her hand on the trunk her mother had forbidden her to open. It belonged to her great-grandfather, and inside were the only clues to the silver mine he had hidden in the hills beyond Teakhollow before he died. She was twelve years old and had heard the stories her whole life. The lock was small and black and older than she was. Her cousin Evalia climbed the ladder behind her, one long braid over her shoulder, carrying two spoons and the jar of mole paste their abuela had sent up from Mexico. Isabela had not seen Evalia since they were small. Three days into the visit, Evalia already treated the cabin like her own house. "Okay so," Evalia said, sitting cross-legged on the floorboards. "You want to open it." "I'm not allowed." "That's not what I asked." Isabela pressed her braids flat against her neck. Downstairs her grandfather Alberto was asleep in the chair by the family portrait wall, his mustache twitching with each breath. He kept the trunk key on a cord around his neck. He had told her a hundred times the trunk was not for children. "He'll wake up," Isabela whispered. "Then be fast." Isabela went down the ladder. Alberto's chest rose and fell under his embroidered shirt. The gray tabby was curled on his lap. She reached for the cord. The cat opened one yellow eye and watched her. She lifted the key over her grandfather's white hair without breathing. He did not stir. The cat blinked and closed its eye. Back in the attic, her hands shook so badly Evalia had to steady the lock. The key turned. The lid creaked open. Inside there was a folded serape, a tin cup, a rusted pickaxe head, and a leather pouch. Isabela opened the pouch. A single lump of ore fell into her palm, heavy and gray, streaked with something that caught the attic light. Silver. Under the serape she found a small notebook. She opened it. The pages were covered in her great-grandfather's handwriting, numbers and small drawings of ridges. The last page had been torn out. A clean edge. Someone had taken it. "He tore out the map," Isabela said. "Or somebody did." A floorboard groaned below them. Then Alberto's voice, awake and sharp, calling her name from the bottom of the ladder. Isabela shoved the notebook and the ore into her shirt. Evalia closed the trunk. Isabela met her cousin's eyes. "He knows," Evalia said, plain. Isabela nodded. She had the ore. She had the notebook. She did not have the map, and now she had to climb down the ladder and face the one person in the house who knew what her great-grandfather had done with it.