White Stones

At half past five in the afternoon, Hugo and his aunt Inés reached the Valcuerno pass and stopped dead. Three paths led off from there, and neither of them was sure which one was theirs.

They had left the Peña Albar mountain hut at nine in the morning. Saúl, the warden, had waved them off from the door: “The sun sets at ten past seven. And don’t mix up our hut with the shepherds’ shelter in the next valley: ours is the one with the red roof.” At first they climbed beside a stream that ran on their left, noisy and icy. At the Three Slabs spring they left it behind and climbed straight up towards the pass, following the cairns, those little piles of stones that mark the way. Hugo noticed something Inés thought was silly: every cairn had a white quartz stone on top, like a hat.