Twenty-One Cardinals

I wasn't yet born when the mine closed. There was dismay, despon­dency and wailing from the shacks, but not at our house. This was our moment. Northern Consolidated had just been tripped up by inter­national finance and was being dragged along behind the plum­meting price of zinc. It had reached the bottom and had wet itself. We weren’t going to shed any tears. Our mine had been returned to us.

The twenty-one children of the Cardinal family have congregated to celebrate their father, who discovered the mine around which their now-desolate town was built. As the siblings run wild, we discover that Angele, the only Cardinal with a penchant for happiness, is missing -- although everyone pretends not to notice. Why the silence? What secrets does the mine hold?