Secrets of the Silver Lion

by Emma Otheguy

  “One second; I’m looking into air traffic controls and scanning aerial footage of the airports.”

  Hurry, Carmen thought. The hair on the back of her neck was prickling, and the odd feeling of being followed was just growing closer. It was hard to move quickly when she and Zack were wheeling the heavy throne on a hand truck. Ivy was trying the tactic of turning around and shouting “Gotcha!” every few moments, hoping to scare whoever it was away, but Carmen didn’t think it was a winning strategy. Meanwhile, Zack was too loaded down with Spanish ham to be of much help. He said he wasn’t going to eat anything else for months.

  “Hmm,” Player said, “an undisclosed organization reserved a take-off time on the landing strip next to ours. But it doesn’t say where they’re going.”

  Carmen groaned. Because they didn’t know where they were going. It was VILE. They were planning on tailing them.

  “You’ll have to shake them once you get to New York, Red. I don’t see any other way around it.”

  Player was probably right—there was no use putting up a fight in midair; none of them were prepared for that and it would probably get them killed. But Carmen wanted to meet Milly and get to the bottom of the letter from León Mondragón. Fighting VILE in New York would be a huge distraction.

  Unless. Carmen stopped in her tracks. An idea took hold in her mind. She remembered once holding off VILE with decoy Carmens—to be specific, Zack and Ivy dressed in red trench coats and fedoras. Instead of following the real Carmen, VILE had gotten mixed up and followed Zack and Ivy in their red trench coats all around the city before realizing they had been led awry. VILE probably wouldn’t fall for decoy Carmens again, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be waylaid by another kind of decoy.

  “Player,” Carmen asked. “Could you reserve a landing spot for us that’s the same general direction as New York—but definitely not New York?”

  While Player worked on picking a location, Carmen spotted a maintenance building by the landing strip. She jerked her head in its direction, and she and Zack and Ivy maneuvered the throne inside the building’s bathroom.

  “Don’t want to be overheard,” she said, moving away from the door and closer to the toilet for safe measure.

  “Um, Carm?” Zack said. He was holding his nose. “This really isn’t the best place for a meeting. I’m worried the smell might hurt my ham.”

  Ivy rolled her eyes and Carmen went ahead and explained the plan. When they were all on the same page, they returned to the landing strip, walking slowly and chatting breezily. When Carmen was pretty sure someone was only steps behind her, certainly in earshot, Ivy said cheerfully, “The weather in Kalamazoo will be lovely this time of year.”

  “Oh yeah,” Carmen agreed loudly. “Plus, who knew that the world’s greatest silver depository was in Kalamazoo, Michigan? We’re going to have a lot to look through when we get to Kalamazoo.”

  “We won’t waste any time when we land,” Ivy agreed. “We’ll just be business, business, business in Kalamazoo.”

  They had chosen Kalamazoo, Michigan, because it was generally west of Madrid, just like New York City, but also because they loved the name. Now Carmen worried it was too obvious—they were having too much fun saying Kalamazoo at every turn.

  “You know, Kalamazoo is quite a destination,” Ivy said, a few feet from the plane. “Too bad we’ll be in and out within the hour—we’re not going to waste any time in Kalamazoo.”

  Feeling she would be lucky if Ivy didn’t entirely give up the ghost, Carmen grabbed Ivy’s wrist and urged her onto the jet plane while Zack secured the throne in back and climbed up to the cockpit. “Come on,” Carmen said. “We can’t waste any time getting to Kalamazoo.”

  Carmen, Zack, and Ivy strapped in for their flight. In minutes, they were airborne. “Come on, come on, come on,” Carmen said to herself.

  “YES!” Player shouted into her earring, and Carmen, Zack, and Ivy did little seat-dances from thirty thousand feet. A private plane had just streaked by them, headed west much farther and faster than they were—with someone who looked suspiciously like Le Chèvre in the pilot’s seat.

  Chapter 22

  NEW YORK CITY WAS AS LIVELY AS EVER, and despite the brand-new refrigerator box they were carrying with them, Carmen, Zack, and Ivy blended into the crowd as they made their way from the airport to the subway station. Ivy had wanted to take a cab with the heavy throne, but Player’s GPS showed that traffic was horrendous, and they couldn’t risk having their movements tracked by a ride-hailing app. So they maneuvered the throne down the packed stairwell into the dimly lit station. It had once been an elegant station, but now tiles were missing from the pattern on the wall that announced the stop, and someone had taken a Sharpie and scrawled rude things over the posters advertising movies and shows. All the same, they enjoyed the clatter of many languages being spoken around them, all in tones that revealed people happy to be home or excited to be visiting the largest city in the United States.

  “Did you know the New York City subway system has more stations than any metro or subway in the world?” Player asked. “You could spend ages trying to get to all of them.”

  Zack was bouncing on the balls of his feet, peering down the dark tunnel.

  “Going to try and drive the subway too?” Ivy asked, with a smirk.

  “As if,” Zack said. “I’m going to be a T conductor—in Boston, of course, the country’s first subway system!” But as the train drew into the station, he hustled forward. “Let’s sit near the conductor—I gotta watch.”

  Friendly strangers made space for them as they heaved the box onto the train, and then it sped off into the pitchblack tunnel. Luckily, the subway car was full of unusual people doing unusual things—there was a woman playing a ukulele and singing off-key, a man putting his hair in curlers, and someone dressed up as a vampire princess, although it was nowhere near Halloween. No one seemed to mind that Carmen and Ivy were holding an enormous box. People probably moved refrigerators on trains all the time in New York City.

  It was a long ride up to Washington Heights, not to mention they had to switch trains. By the time they reached their stop, they had watched dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people get on and off the train around them. Ivy had gotten a seat and fallen asleep with her head on the side of the refrigerator box. She was snoring slightly. Carmen shook her awake. They had arrived.

  Their hand truck was useless on the stairs, so they were all sweating by the time they reached the top of the subway entrance. They heaved the refrigerator box up the last step and set it down on the sidewalk. Zack leaned on it and fanned his face. It was a good thing the museum was only a few steps away, because Carmen wasn’t sure how much longer they could handle the heavy box.

  The terrace was all but deserted. It was nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, and visitors had gone home for the day. By the looks of the sleepy guard by the door, the museum wasn’t expecting much more activity. When Carmen explained they were there to see Milly, he smiled indulgently and waved them inside.

  Carmen, Zack, and Ivy carried the throne up the stairs and wove their way through the galleries to Milly’s office. They knocked on the door.

  Milly opened it. She looked terrible. She had a strained appearance and bags under her eyes, like she had been working overtime and maybe doing some crying. Her office was, if it was possible, messier than before. Now even her desk was piled with clutter, and the picture of her father was obscured by a long and official-looking report.

  “Oh,” said Milly when she saw them. “It’s you three again.”

  Carmen faltered. She had been imagining Milly’s expression the entire plane ride home. In her imagination, Milly had been grateful and overjoyed. Carmen had pictured her saying, “I knew you would get it back all along! I had complete faith in you. I wasn’t even a little bit worried!” But clearly Milly had been worrying, and clearly she did not have complete faith in Carmen.

  “We, um . . . brought you something.” />
  Milly raised an eyebrow.

  “Ta-da!” said Zack. He waved his arms in front of the refrigerator box like a game show anchor unveiling the prize car.

  Milly’s face was completely blank. Then she sighed. “Is that a replacement throne? That’s the second one I’ve been offered this week.”

  Carmen looked at Zack and Ivy. “No,” she said slowly, shaking her head. “You misunderstood—it’s not a replacement.”

  Milly was now nodding sympathetically at Carmen, the way Coach Brunt used to do when Carmen made her bracelets out of string as a kid, or failed breakfast-in-bed attempts. It made Carmen’s face burn.

  “It’s very nice of you,” Milly went on, forcing a smile. “But of course, what mattered about the throne were the original inlays—”

  Zack interrupted. “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you! We have the throne and the inlays!” And without waiting for Milly to reply, he reached into his jeans, flipped up the blade of a pocketknife, and ripped open the box. The cardboard fell away, leaving the throne, heavily encased in Bubble Wrap. It looked like a moth swaddled in its cocoon. But even through all the layers, it was plain what was inside. The silver arrow still twinkled within.

  Milly put her hands over her mouth. For a moment, no one said anything. When Milly lowered her hands, there were tears in her eyes. She reached an arm out silently, and Zack, understanding her meaning, handed her the pocketknife. Milly started at the bottom, running the pocketknife up through the layers of Bubble Wrap as if she were unzipping a winter sweater. When the whole base was uncovered and the silver castle was revealed, newly polished and shining next to the silver arrow, she dropped to her knees and pushed her face very close. Carmen could practically see her heart glowing. This was better, much better than any praise Milly could have given them.

  When the throne was safely inside Milly’s office, Milly reached for the phone. She was frantic to contact her colleagues in Bolivia and tell them that the special exhibit would be happening after all, and to call her father’s relatives and tell them that, at long last, she would get to meet them in person. But after the calls had been made and the happy crying and shouting had subsided, Carmen retrieved the folded letter from her pocket.

  She laid it out on Milly’s desk, on top of all the paper and clutter. Milly unfolded her reading glasses. While Carmen explained about finding León Mondragón’s secret hiding spot in Sevilla, Milly examined the letter carefully.

  “But the problem,” Carmen said, finishing her long story, “is that I can’t read this letter. I feel like it might have a clue, but I can’t tell for sure. All I can make out is something about how the Spanish were selfish—and how they stole the silver.”

  Milly put down the letter and folded her arms. She looked steadily at Carmen. “What do you think, Carmen? Did the Spanish steal the silver?”

  Carmen considered for a minute. “On the one hand, León Mondragón got paid for making those silver inlays; I saw the accounts he kept myself. Player—that’s my friend—” Carmen added quickly, not wanting to explain any further, “told me that in seventeenth-century money, he was paid really well. But on the other hand, the ore was mined and the silver was refined by people who were forced to work and who weren’t paid enough to even cover the supplies they needed to do the job—that is like stealing, when you think about it. Like stealing from the mountain itself.”

  Milly glanced at a framed print hanging on her wall, one Carmen hadn’t noticed before. It was a rough engraving of the side of a mountain, and it looked almost as if the mountain had been split open to reveal the contents inside. It showed workers climbing up and down, following the veins of ore with heavy packs on their backs.

  “The Red Mountain,” she said wistfully. “They say that from a distance the minerals in the ground make it look reddish. Some people called it the Cerro Rico too—the Rich Hill. But for everyone it made wealthy, someone else was injured or killed in the mines, or spent months, or years, away from their family in constant danger. They would force them to work all night, even when they knew there was a risk of a cave-in.” Milly shuddered at the thought. “I would say it’s fair to call what happened in those mines stealing.” She pushed her reading glasses farther up her nose. “But, Carmen, of course you didn’t understand all of the words in this letter—they’re not all in Spanish.”

  “They’re not?”

  “No, of course not. Think about it. Remember how I told you that the smith who made these silver inlays was mestizo—half Spanish, half Lupaca? That meant that he was probably bilingual, and likely even trilingual. He spoke Spanish like his father, of course, but he also spoke Quechua, which was the language of the Incas—the Indigenous empire that ruled the region before the Spanish—and likely another Indigenous language, Aymara. I think these words are from those languages.”

  “So can you read ’em?” Ivy asked eagerly.

  “I’ll take a stab at it,” Milly said with a little laugh. “Some of my friends from Bolivia speak Aymara, but I’ve only ever picked up a little.” She studied the letter a little longer, her mouth moving ever so slightly as she read. Finally, she leaned back and pulled off her reading glasses.

  “It sounds like that trip to Spain in his old age changed a lot for León Mondragón,” she explained. “Once he visited the court of King Felipe IV and saw where his silver crafts were installed, he no longer thought of shipping his work around the world like making a connection to life beyond the mountain. The greed he witnessed! The courtiers didn’t care at all what kind of skill went into making the silver shapes. They weren’t interested in how he combined silversmithing techniques from Europe and the Andes. All they cared about was how valuable the silver was. They were ready to melt it down! Imagine!”

  Carmen could not, for the life of her, imagine melting down anything as fine and detailed as the silver arrow—not unless someone’s life depended on it—but she knew plenty of people in VILE who would be only too glad to do so.

  “Mondragón came to believe that all that work he had done—all of the skill he had honed and all of the sweat and passion he had put into making silver shapes—was for nothing. People weren’t taking joy from looking at his craftsmanship; they only saw money. They didn’t appreciate the hard work that went into it. He decided that in his whole life, he had done nothing but make money for the colonists.” Milly glanced down at the letter one more time and bit her lip. “He started to think the silver should have stayed in Potosí. He almost regretted having been a silversmith. But most of all, he was angry at Joaquín Reinoso.”

  “The merchant who built the tunnels?”

  Milly nodded. “It seems like León Mondragón caught on to him—and that the silver castle was stolen during Mondragón’s trip to Spain. Of course, people clamored for Mondragón to make a replacement, but he refused. He was done working for the Spanish. He only wanted to work for himself, for the rest of his life.” Milly shook her head. “He doesn’t say how, but he traced the theft of the silver castle to the merchant Joaquín Reinoso. In this letter—teally it’s more of a diary, it’s not addressed to anyone—he’s so furious. That someone would steal his work and hide it away was too much for Mondragón.” Carmen cleared her throat. “Milly?” she asked. “There’s something I don’t get. So León Mondragón was mad at Reinoso for squirreling away the silver castle—and then Mondragón decided to destroy the silver lion—so that no one would ever get to see it again? That just doesn’t make sense.”

  Chapter 23

  THE ROOM WAS QUIET while everyone considered what Carmen had said.

  “What makes you think Mondragón destroyed his silver lion?” Milly asked.

  Carmen told her about the other note she had found, hidden below the Archivo in Sevilla. Mondragón had told everyone not to bother looking for it, because it had vanished. “But now that you’re reading us this other letter—it sounds like he was the one who made it vanish. Because he didn’t want it to be in Spain, where people saw his art
as just money.”

  Milly nodded. “It’s interesting, isn’t it?”

  Carmen knew exactly what Milly meant. “That he chose the lion to take—because his name was León. It’s almost like he was talking about himself—like he belonged back on the mountain, and not in Spain.”

  Ivy brought everyone back down to reality. “So he vanished himself? That doesn’t make much sense.”

  “But for the Spanish—for the people who would have found that note if it had been discovered behind the arrow centuries ago instead of just now—he had vanished, right?” Then Carmen shook her head. “I guess it doesn’t get us any closer to finding the silver lion.”

  Milly smiled placidly. “Carmen, the throne returned—and the two silver shapes—seeing the silver castle in person, it’s already more than I ever expected. I thought when the throne was stolen it was gone for good. You’ve done very, very well, and you should be proud of yourself. Of course, I don’t know how you did it . . .”

  Carmen gave Milly a mysterious look. “Don’t ask a lady to reveal her secrets.”

  Milly laughed. “All right, I won’t, then. But don’t let that silver lion bother you too much. No pasa nada. You’ve done well.”

  Carmen continued pacing around the tiny amount of space in Milly’s office. There was something that didn’t quite fit. It was like having an itch somewhere you couldn’t reach; the answer was there, somewhere, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She just knew there was something flitting around the edges of her mind, nagging her not to be forgotten.

  She turned sharply toward Milly. “Could I show you the other clue?” she said abruptly.

  “Of course,” Milly said. “Although it sounds like you and your friend Player have done all the sleuthing you need.”

  “We don’t have the original clue anymore,” Carmen explained, “but I can show you the photo we took of it.”