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Santi couldn’t actually hear her over the overwhelming wail in his soul, but he could read her lips.

“Finish it!” she screamed.

Santiago didn’t have time to think. A flash of silver peeked out from a pile of dirty, travel-worn clothing, contrasting against the amber-colored floor. He snatched it in his hands, unscrewing the lid as quickly as he could.

When he’d fantasized about this moment, he had imagined taking the time to speak with his grandfather. To deliver a small speech or heartfelt eulogy before scattering his ashes. Something respectful and reverent.

Now, knowing he couldn’t make it to the coffin under the present circumstances, Santiago didn’t have time for a single thought before he upended the entire canister onto the floor.

The ashes fell but never touched the ground. They hovered instead, swirling in the air and floating toward Atahualpa’s tomb. Santiago was briefly transfixed.

When they touched the golden coffin, they disappeared, like snowflakes melting over a warm car hood. When every single bit of his grandfather’s remains was completely absorbed into the gold, everything changed.

One moment, Santiago was in the center of the crumbling temple.

The next, he was gone.

54

Santiago found himself in a place without shape or form. It was bright, dazzling, in the way that only vast nothingness can be.

He felt weightless, immaterial, and when he looked down at himself, Santiago fully expected to see nothing there. But he was there, looking just as he had before. Those were his same hands, the narrow wrists he’d inherited from his mother, the light dusting of hair over his knuckles. Even the scar on his left thumb, an old war wound from attempting his first grilled cheese sandwich at the age of seven.

He was wholly himself, and yet in no place that he could identify.

A thought occurred to him.

“Am I dead?” he wondered aloud, his voice crisp and sharp against the quiet stillness.

“No, mijo,” a voice replied. “It is not your time. Hopefully not for a while longer still.”

Santiago stared open-mouthed at the man who stood before him. He had not walked up, or appeared, or materialized in any sort of way. He was simply there, as if he had always been there.

Santiago’s throat squeezed painfully tight.

“Abuelo Manco?” he whispered.

His abuelo smiled, thin lips pulling over crooked teeth. He looked exactly the same as the last time Santiago had seen him, though more than a decade had passed since then.

But the man before him had the same full head of wavy dark hair, the same bushy eyebrows, and no more wrinkles marring his skin than when Santiago had known him.

“Is it really you?” Santiago asked, unable to stop staring.

“Hola, Santi,” Manco replied, eyes welling with tears.

“I really am dead, then,” Santiago responded. Surprisingly, the realization didn’t trouble him as much as he thought it would.

Manco laughed. “Still not dead, mijo.”

“Then what is this?” Santiago pleaded. “Where am I? What’s happening?”

Grinning, Manco reached forward and lifted the chakana necklace from Santiago’s chest. It was suddenly in the older man’s hand, no longer attached to the rope chain. He held it out toward Santiago, and a glitter of light sparkled in the pendant’s center, a white flash that felt familiar.

Santiago’s eyebrows shot up. “The space between pachas?” he asked, surprised. The center of the chakana was the space that connected all three planes of existence. He was in a place between worlds? Suspended somewhere in time and space?

“It is how I can speak to you,” Manco replied, and suddenly the necklace was back around Santiago’s neck. “We are neither in the land of the living nor of the dead.”

Santiago opened his mouth to ask a question, but Manco’s hearty chuckle interrupted him.