Mara said again, “It’s Chaiwa’s Lizard’s Tail, I’m telling you. No one ever listens to the artist with the arrow sticking out of her chest.”

Calliope laughed. Was Mara always this bizarre, this funny? Calliope could see what her tía liked about her. Could see why Tía loved her. Calliope felt ashamed of how angry she’d been at Mara when she’d first arrived at Tía’s hacienda, how she’d accused Mara of killing her family when Mara was just as invested in finding her family as she was. When Mara had taken an arrow for her. Calliope owed her a debt of gratitude. “Okay, Lizard flees. Escapes. Maybe even vanishes, as you say. Can Lizard ever return? Can she reappear?”

“Now you’re thinking, girl. Now you’re thinking.” Mara coughed a phlegmy cough. “Those scientists, and my father. They were there for a trigger, for a millionth of a second, for a violent chain reaction that treated us for what we are.”

“What are we?” Eunjoo squeaked.

The old woman closed her eyes, and in her gargled voice replied, “We’re matter.”

Outside, Amy slapped the hood, yelled, “We’re unstuck.” She pressed her body against the side of the truck, shuffling gingerly back to the driver’s-­side door. Chance put the shovels away, then slid into the back seat, resuming his position as Mara’s pillow.

“Careful,” Calliope told Amy. “Eunjoo’s afraid we’re going to fall off the cliff, like Coyote in the story.”

“That right? Don’t worry, Eunjoo. I’m an expert driver. Remember I flew that plane?”

Calliope said, “Yeah, you might not want to bring that up. We all remember how you flew that plane away from us so we had to walk the desert for hours …”

Amy cleared her throat, her face red. “I’m really sorry about that guys. Heat of the moment, you know? No hard feelings?”

Eunjoo said, “At least you came back.”

“There’s the spirit,” Amy said, grinning. “What’s family for, right?”

Chance gave directions: the road would soon descend. Within an hour they should have been out in the clearing, then an hour to the salt lake (he didn’t call it “sacred” when he instructed Amy on how to get there). After that, it was a straight shot to Zuni.

He checked Mara’s bandage, a torn-off piece of his shirt.

“Hang in there,” he said. “Our healers will fix you up.”

“Oh, I’m hanging, honey,” Mara gurgled. “You’re a fine caregiver, you know that? You’d make a fine husband. You got yourself a wife in Zuni?”

Calliope’s heart raced. She stared out the side window at the snow-­covered hillside, counting her breaths in Spanish, focusing on her body.