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.

Isabela came down the ladder with the notebook flat against her ribs and the ore pressing cold through her shirt. Alberto stood at the bottom, one hand on the rail. His mustache was still creased from sleep, but his eyes were awake. He looked at her the way he looked at a broken lock. "Come here," he said. "Empty your pockets." She stepped down onto the pine floor. Behind him, the front room of the cedar cabin opened out: the white couch, the stone chimney, the row of pots along the windowsill. Her abuela's twin talavera pots sat on the mantel, blue and red flowers painted around their bellies. Between them stood the tropical bloom in its Mexican pot, its dark pink flower nodding whenever anyone crossed the floor. "Grandpa, I was just—" "Pockets." She needed three seconds. She glanced past him at the pots. The tropical bloom was the deepest. Its soil was loose. Evalia was still on the ladder above, watching. Isabela pressed a hand to her stomach and made her face go pale, which was not hard. "I feel sick," she said. "The mole. I need water." Alberto's mouth tightened. He did not move. Then the amber tabby walked out from behind the couch. It was Alberto's other cat, the orange one, and it went straight for his ankles and pushed its head against his boot. He looked down for half a second. Isabela moved. She stepped sideways to the mantel, slid the notebook from her shirt, and pushed it down behind the twin talavera pots, flat against the wall where the shadow was. The ore she shoved into the tropical bloom's pot, deep into the wet soil, up to her wrist. A leaf shook. The pink flower bobbed once. She turned around with dirt under her fingernails and her hands open. "See?" she said. "Nothing." Alberto crossed the room in four steps. He patted her shirt, her sleeves, the waist of her jeans. He checked her braids. He crouched and looked at her shoes. The amber tabby watched from the rug. Evalia climbed down the ladder behind them, silent. "Turn around." She turned. He found nothing. He straightened up slowly. His eyes went to the mantel. He looked at the pots for a long moment. Isabela's heart hit her ribs so hard she thought he could hear it. But he did not step closer. He rubbed his face with one hand. "Go wash," he said. "And stay out of the attic." She went to the kitchen. Her hands shook under the tap. Evalia followed and stood close. "He'll search the house tonight," Evalia whispered. "He knows something is gone. You have one day to move them, or he finds them." Isabela stared at the dirt spiraling down the drain. The notebook and the ore were safe for an hour. Maybe less.