“There’s not much more to tell, sweetheart. Chaiwa, my nanny from San Ildefonso, was my everything. A better mother than my mother. But after Trinity Site, she disappeared.”

Shadows bulged across the bosque outside Tía’s window as the moon slipped in and out of clouds, snow hovering on the branches like white balloons floating in the darkness.

“What happened after Chaiwa disappeared?” Calliope asked.

Mara sighed. “Nothing. We never saw her again. My mother went crazy and my father was discharged and we left.”

Calliope turned from the window toward Mara. “There has to be more to the story.”

“It was Lizard’s Tail, that’s what I’m saying. I don’t understand it, but I think she made herself disappear.”

“Not witchcraft?” Chance asked.

Mara shook her head emphatically. “No.”

“Lord, y’all plain crazy, that’s what I think, that’s just crazy talk,” Buick said, his Southern geniality cracking, his voice rising an octave. He shook his head emphatically, dipped the butter knife into the jelly jar, and slathered it thickly onto the last piece of bread in the bag. “Guess I must be crazy too.” He rolled his bread into a jelly doughnut and stuffed it into his mouth.

“Maybe we are crazy, honey,” Mara said. “But if Trudy disappeared the way Chaiwa did, then I need to talk to your Elders, Chance. Find out if there’s any way to bring her back.”

“My people go to Kothluwala’wa when they die. Join with the Spirits. I’ve never heard of leaving for that place early. But it’s worth a shot asking, I guess. There’s lots I don’t know. Believe me.”

“Oh, I do believe you,” Buick said, licking the jelly from the butter knife as if it were a spoon. “I believe none of y’all know what’s going on, ’cause we’re in the Twilight Zone, that’s why.”

Eunjoo said adamantly, “Coyote told us the answer. You’re just not listening.”

“This conversation has officially derailed somewhere in the rugged tundra of Siberia and is now skidding across the ice in concentric circles,” Calliope said. She squeezed Eunjoo’s shoulder. “Come on, chica. Bedtime.”

“But I slept all evening.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Coyote’s.”

“Nice try. Let’s go.”

She glanced one last time out the window, unable to shake the feeling someone was watching. These stories were giving her the creeps, was all. Eunjoo’s birds from the story killing Coyote and the dead crow flown into the bathroom window. Or maybe the coyote had come looking for Eunjoo—not to tell her stories, but to make her his meal.

She pulled the girl close, steered her toward Tía’s room.

Before she reached the hallway, there was a knock at the front door.

She froze.

“Who’s that?” Eunjoo asked.