In the hours she’d been in labor, Calliope had learned from the women that being around dying people or animals was unhealthy for mother and babies; she had to take care not to fall victim to witchcraft over the next several hours and days, when the veil to the Spirit world was thinnest, as was the case with childbirth. Wowo łashhi, Chance’s great-grandmother, had made a hot tea of toasted juniper twigs and berries steeped in boiling water to relax the system and induce copious lochial discharge. Malia was a midwife, and she put a badger’s claw on a string around Calliope’s belly because the badger was good at digging his way out, and the badger was also good medicine for labor pains. Nala, one of Chance’s sisters, told Calliope that Zuni women were expected not to cry or yell during childbirth but that since Calliope wasn’t Zuni, she could cry if she needed to and they wouldn’t think less of her. Malia told Nala not to be disrespectful to her sister-in-law, and Calliope felt like crying, but not with pain.

Chance had returned only to fetch Mara and take her to the Medicine Society. Calliope had asked after Amy’s body. He said he would prepare her for burial, not to concern herself with death. It wasn’t good in her condition. Since Zuni men rarely attended childbirth, he said, it wasn’t his place. But he’d come once the twins arrived. Them, he wanted to meet.

The women comforted Calliope with stories, and once they knew she was delivering twins, they shared their sacred creation story with her, for it centered on their two most beloved twins. On two towering buttes called Kwilli-yallon (Twin Mountain) dwelt Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma—twin children of Sun Father and Mother Waters of the World. Before the A’shiwi came from the belly of the earth, the underworld, Sun made love to Waters of the World, and two boys came from their union. They were called Uanam Achi Piah-koa, or the Beloved Two Who Fell. The time came when war and many strange beings arose to destroy the children of earth, and the hearts of the twins were changed to Sawanika, or the medicine of war. The twins guarded the Ancient Ancestors and guided them to the middle of the world, where Calliope was now lying.

Nala said, “With the gift of the medicine of war and wisdom of the Sun, the twins protected the Corn People of the Earth—that’s us.” She stretched her arms to indicate everyone in the room. “When they’d conquered the enemies, they taught a chosen few the songs, prayers, and orders.” She wrinkled her nose, winking at Calliope. “They don’t usually select girls, but every once in a while, a girl slips by and gets into a kiva.”