Ashes
The trip to the archaeological site of the Tacaguas had been planned by the fifth grade teachers as part of a series of cultural visits for the students about to graduate from high school.
"You know, bring your permission slips for your parents to sign. Don't forget to bring them tomorrow."
"What time exactly do we have to be here, you know I live a little far from downtown". A young man with glasses and shoulder-length hair asks him.
"They have to be here at six in the morning, we can't wait too long, Felipe."
"Ok, fine, I will tell my father to bring me. I can pick you up at your house, Magaly".
"I would like to, let's see what my mom says. You know how suspicious she is. I'll call you in the afternoon and we'll make an agreement".
Magaly says goodbye to her classmates and walks to the bus stop. Her stature stands out, and she wears her short brown hair tied back with a pair of hair clips.
The bus stops at a residential complex of small houses with gardens.
"See you guys tomorrow"
Magaly gets off the bus and walks down the path lined with cayenne trees on both sides and opens the door.
"Mommy, I'm home. Where are you?"
"Here, daughter, in the kitchen".
Her mother is feeding her brother Miguel. He is one year old and the oatmeal is slipping out of his mouth and his fingers are playing with the plate on the table.
"What a mess you're making, big eater!. Magaly grabs his cheeks with both hands".
"Daughter!, let him go, he could choke".
"Tomorrow we have a trip to Tacagua, and we have to be at school very early. You have to sign a permission slip".
"That's good, daughter!, that place is very interesting. I also went there when I was in high school".
"Felipe said he can pass me around looking for you. His father is going to take him".
"That's okay, daughter. Since your daddy is not here, but you know I don't like to bother you".
"Thank you, Mommy". She kisses him on the forehead and runs to call Felipe.
The yellow bus is arriving at the archeological ruins. The place is surrounded by low hills with bushes and grasses. Near the shore of the lake there is a limestone site where the remains of a pre-Hispanic civilization were found. The objects found were taken to the museum.
The tour with the teachers explaining the culture of the native groups reaches the petroglyph painted on the rocks of the hills. There they observe human figures, animals and concentric circles. In the afternoon, they are on their way back to school.
"Look what I found in a fissure in the rock". Felipe shows Magaly a small vessel painted yellow with brown stripes and figures of foxes.
"How beautiful!, but we shouldn't give it to the museum. It's strange that they haven't found it."
"I don't want to give it away. You didn't see how many objects they have stored in that room?. They haven't even sorted them. I want to give it to you".
"Thank you, Felipe. I love it. I'm going to take good care of it".
Magaly arrives home excited and tells her mother everything she saw while she was at home.
"We have to make a report and turn it in next week. Look at the vessel that Felipe found. He gave it to me".
"How beautiful it is, but it should have been returned, those objects are sacred, daughter".
Magaly gives the same justification that Felipe told her. And she places it on a shelf in the living room next to other objects that her father has brought back from his travels. A Chinese vase, a Russian doll, a Japanese miniature and other traditional art objects.
While Magaly sleeps, she begins to dream that she is a young man, about fifteen years old, running through the hills, barefoot and dressed in a guayuco. He carries a spear in his hand. He is chasing a deer, but it escapes him. At that moment he wakes up sweating as if he had been running.
That dream is repeated the next night but this time, the young man is not alone. There is a man teaching him how to hunt. But she senses that something is going to happen and wakes up scared.
Magaly tells Felipe what is happening to her.
"That's because of everything they told us on the trip. Dreams, subconscious thoughts. They will pass".
But that didn't happen and night after night Magaly dreamt thatThat she was that young man and that she was in danger. She woke up very tired and dark circles appeared in her eyes.
Her mother began to worry.
"What's wrong with you, daughter. You look very tired, aren't you sleeping well?"
"Yes, I sleep, Mom, but I dream a lot." And she tells her dreams.
"Daughter and since when is that?"
"Since the trip".
"I believe that it has to do with the vessel. I told you that those objects are sacred".
"But what do we do? I don't want to give it to the Museum. What if we leave it where Felipe found it?"
"That could be, but I don't know if we're allowed in there".
"I'm going to call Felipe. Maybe he or his dad would know what to do?"
Felipe's dad calls a friend who is a professor of pre-Hispanic culture to help them understand what is going on, and that same afternoon they meet with him in his office.
"The vessels were used to hold the bodies of the dead, although this one is very small. It is possible that the body was cremated, and the ashes placed in it. It looks like a funerary vessel, but it is not what they were used to".
"But why I dream of that young man?".
"That is something beyond scientific understanding. I would say it is related to the spiritual world. My opinion is that the ashes belong to that young man who lived hundreds of years ago and somehow communicates in your dreams".
"Then the best thing to do is to return the vase to its place, we need your help professor".
"Don't worry, madam. Tomorrow we go there, I'm going to help them".
That night Magaly dreams that the young man has reached the deer at the top of the hill but does not have time to use the spear. An arrow poisoned with curare hits him in the chest. An enemy tribe attacks her village. His body is burned, and his ashes are enclosed in a vessel that does not belong to his tribe.
Magaly gets up early and together with her mother, he teacher, Felipe and her father, they go to the valley of the Tacagua. When they get there, she already knows what she has to do.
At the top of the hill, she throws the vase against a rock. The ashes are released, and the wind scatters them all over the valley.
Thank you for reading my entry in The Ink Well Fiction Prompt #120.