Across Time: A Collection of Short Stories

At One

The Sun's eye beams down on the pilgrims as they tread along the rutted mountain trail cut into the cliff. Qhawa squints up at the Sun, the emperor's ancestor. Like a glowing ball of fire, its haze shimmering around her... "Why did you decide to come?" a worn-down woman asks her. Blinking, Qhawa glances towards her companion. She has tired lines under her eyes and black hair threaded with grey. A child stumbles alongside her, coughing.

Nina's young, full face swims in the flames behind Qhawa's eyes... The two sisters had lived together in a farming village since their parents' deaths. Qhawa had woken early that fateful morning, as always, an animal skin wrapped around her and her younger sister; she had stared at the corner of the room where the stone wall met the thatch roof, reluctant to get up. A guinea pig had rooted around on the dirt floor near her, nudging at her. "I'm up," she had muttered, rubbing her eyes and standing. Nina had not stirred. Usually, Qhawa woke her sister. But she had looked peaceful lying there hugging her doll.

Instead, Qhawa had slipped into her dress and had stoked the cook fire. Then she had pulled back the curtain hanging over the door to step outside. Humming to herself, she had gone to the storehouse to gather corn for the morning meal. "Good morning, Qhawa," Achiq, a member of Qhawa's ayllu, or group of families, had greeted her at the storehouse.

Qhawa had almost replied when a scream had rent the air from her house. Her errand forgotten, she had sprinted back to the hut. Too late... Nina had collapsed near the fire pit. Flames had begun to consume her skin, and smoke had entombed her. "Nina!" Qhawa had shrieked. But she could do nothing.

"The religious festival," Qhawa lies now. "I got official permission to travel for it. You?"

"My daughter, Sisa, is ill," the woman replies heavily, touching the child's shoulder, "and I can't find a cure. If I come here, I hope she'll be made well."

Qhawa glances at the child, her slight body racked by coughs. She looks about Nina's age...Nina. Quickly Qhawa bites back tears and gazes up at the trees above. An old campfire, maybe from a soldier, continues to smolder there. A spark snaps upwards and catches at the low-hanging bough of a tree. The spark grows into a blaze, feeding on the timber.

All of her senses on alert, Qhawa realizes that the wind is blowing downhill—towards the pilgrims. She cries out. The woman beside her and several other travelers now notice the expanding blaze, their bodies rigid with fear. Qhawa breathes deeply, trying to calm herself. "Someone help me down." She indicates the edge of the slope they're standing on and the road continuing below. "I can lift some of the children down after me."

The woman she had been speaking with offers her hands to Qhawa. She backs to the lip of the slope and eases herself down with the woman's help. Then Qhawa releases her hands to jump to the road below. The woman turns to her daughter. "Don't look down; you'll be safe, I promise," she assures her. Sisa trembles. "Here, I'll help you," her mother continues. Gently she lowers Sisa down, and Qhawa reaches up to her.

"Mama!" she calls out as the woman releases her. Qhawa braces herself to catch Sisa.

"You're safe now," she whispers.

More people follow Qhawa and lower the others down the cliff to safety. On the road ahead of them, Machu Picchu, their destination, beckons in the distance.