Calliope thought of this as she knelt in the snow, a gush of hot amniotic fluid rushing between her thighs. She held Amy’s limp body to her chest, rocking back and forth, blood smearing her own clothes. She was conscious of the middle place: between death and life. The young woman in her arms, the children in her body.

And that she had failed.

Chance peeled Amy’s body away from Calliope, who clutched her tightly, still rocking back and forth, Chance pulling her away, saying, “We’ll pray properly, mujer. Bury her. But we have to get you to the rez.” He carried the dead woman’s body to the truck. Then he came back for Calliope, still kneeling in shock, the snow beneath her melted with birthwater, tinged pink with blood.

Her vision blurred. Penumbras around every object. Sun splotches. Inkblots distorted with tears. She felt cold. Chance lifted her, carried her to the truck, as the thorned flowers in her belly swelled and shrank, needling her with each blossoming and dying.

Amy was dead.

Calliope sat shuddering on the front seat, as Eunjoo clutched her tightly, tears rolling freely down the girl’s cheeks. Even if Calliope had been able to speak, she wouldn’t have needed to sugarcoat anything for the little girl, who seemed to understand more than any of them. She rubbed Calliope’s belly as she cried, and though the little hands offered no relief, felt like nothing more than cat’s paws vaguely kneading at her skin, Calliope didn’t brush her away.

Mara gurgled something about how sad it was. Calliope didn’t answer.

Chance must’ve fixed the truck. Calliope didn’t ask how, just leaned against the seat, her head tilted toward the window, and stared at the blurring rock wall as they careened down the mountain. Wet snow sloshed under the tires until they reached the mountain’s eventual end, when the snow gave way to mud-wet roads, mossy-brown, edged with new growth.

No one said a word.

Eunjoo had worn herself out crying and was snoring against Calliope, who’d been clenching her teeth until her jaw ached and gripping the armrest until her knuckles went white. She felt as if she’d grown a tail, her spinal cord exposed and frayed and searing. Her ass ached. Her thighs throbbed. She squirmed uncomfortably, pressing her feet against the floorboard, bearing down in the seat. Resisting the urge to push. It wasn’t time. She wasn’t ready.

She steadied her breathing.

Blood streaming down her friend’s neck, siphoning out of her onto the snow.

She felt the blood rushing between her thighs, a thick pulse in her pelvis.

Amy was dead. But she had to think about her babies.

She breathed in: uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco. Breathed out.