She thought of the Upper Paleolithic shaman woman excavated from the Czech Republic, buried with mammoth tusks and a fox in her hand; it was such a remarkable discovery that spiritual healers even during the Ice Age had been women, where previous academic study had speculated it an all-male profession. Calliope had loved the idea of this woman and her ocher-painted bones, her hundreds of bake-oven, hard-clay figurines, talismans for ritual or healing. All over the world since humanity began, women were central to spirituality and medicine. Bisabuela would’ve loved the Ice Age shaman woman as Bisabuela would have loved Old Lady Salt.

Calliope wished miracles could exist alongside science.

“How about a blessing for the wounded lady back here,” Mara quipped, her voice still garbled but spitfire. The silver halo of hair around her face glistened with the sweat of fever. “I could use some hope.”

Luck already seemed on Mara’s side. She hadn’t bled out or stopped breathing yet. But she needed help as quickly as Calliope did. Maybe quicker. Calliope pictured Amy’s dead body in the back of the truck.

“Old Lady Salt is gracious to those who respect her.”

A pulling in her gut. Uterine strings twisting. Heat rushing between her thighs. She’d already released her amniotic waters. What was this?

Something was wrong.

“Pull over,” Calliope said.

He slowed. “What’s going on?”

She opened the door, vomited clear liquid onto the white earth and saltbush, the plant’s papery four-winged leaves sparkling with it.

She could see the lake in the distance. She wouldn’t make it.

She stumbled out of the truck, crawled on hands and knees across the alkaline soil, groaning. She had the urge to shit. Trailing behind her on the salted ground, bright red poppies.

Chance knelt beside her, his hands clutched around her waist, as if he couldn’t decide whether to lift her or crawl with her, and so he held her, lamely, his voice trembling, “Mujer, you’re bleeding. Is that normal? Is there supposed to be blood? If I could just get you to the lake, I could ask for help.”

Eunjoo climbed from the truck, Bisabuela’s bowl in her hand.

Calliope couldn’t remember the last time she’d had it, thought she’d left it at Tía’s.

Her vision was blurring.

She was hemorrhaging. Ruptured placenta? Stillbirth? She didn’t know what was happening, but she was in too much pain even to cry out.

“Use this,” the girl said.

She held the bowl to Calliope’s face.

It was filled with water.

“How?” Chance asked.

“Old Lady Salt gave it to me,” Eunjoo said. “It’ll help.”