The children were awake, sitting on the serape, eyes tired, mouths dry. Tomás looked at her with that heartbreaking seriousness and asked if there was any food. Catalina didn’t answer. She hugged them tightly, very tightly, and for the first time in months let her tears flow freely. But these weren’t tears of pain—they were tears of something that felt like hope. What Catalina didn’t yet know was that this hidden treasure hadn’t appeared by chance. By touching it, by discovering it, she had opened a door closed for decades.
A door sealed long ago with blood, secrets, and a lingering curse shadowing the mountain. Catalina spent the morning on the grotto floor, staring at the silver coins she had tucked in her shawl. She cleaned them with the hem of her skirt until they gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the cave. Five coins—heavy, cold, real.
She counted them over and over, as if touching them could reveal their origin, their purpose, and whether she had the right to keep them. The children watched quietly. Tomás, with his old-man seriousness, asked if this meant they could finally eat. Lupita, still innocent, asked if they were rich now. Carlitos simply held out his hands, wanting to touch the coins their mother clutched.
Catalina didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know if the coins were cursed, if they belonged to someone, or if someone would come searching. But she knew her children hadn’t eaten in two days, that Tomás’s lips were cracked with thirst, and that Lupita shivered even in the morning sun. She made a decision. She tucked four coins into her shawl and placed one in Tomás’s hand.
She told them to go down to the village together and buy what they needed: bread, beans, corn, dried meat if they could afford it—but not to tell anyone where they had found the money. Tomás nodded, as serious as ever, helping carry Carlitos while Lupita walked beside Catalina, holding her skirt. The path down was long, rocky, and bramble-choked. By the time they reached the village, the sun beat down like molten lead.
