“Yes, but come in when it’s time to set the table. You know how Malia hates when you’re late for chores.”

The first time Eunjoo had disregarded chores, Nala had warned her that the Suuke would snatch her away in its basket and take her to the peach orchards. Eunjoo had paled, but her reaction was nothing compared with Malia’s, who had raised her voice louder than Calliope had ever heard her speak, the birds of her hands flying toward Nala’s face this time instead of her own. Chance had calmed his mother, but no one ever mentioned the Suuke in Malia’s house again. And Eunjoo never missed her chores.

After she cleaned the baby, Calliope wandered outside with the corn girl, free of her cradleboard, which she’d resisted using around five months old, fighting to release her arms from the constraints of swaddling. Malia had suggested strapping her in but allowing her the use of her arms to play with a rattling drum that Chance had made her, but even that less constrictive position the corn girl disliked. No, her daughter would not be strapped down, which was just as well. Her head was flat enough. Calliope had been frustrated at first that they’d flattened her daughter’s head, but eventually laughed as she’d rubbed the flat spot beneath the shining black waves on the back of Chance’s head like polishing a table. “It’s a family trait,” he’d said, before either of them had realized it couldn’t have been true. Miwe e’le wasn’t his.

The black pudding sausages when broiled were not any more appealing than raw, and the stench of the blood roasting on the grill nearly made Calliope gag. She waved at Chance as she walked quickly past, burying her nose in the milky folds of the corn girl’s neck, the sweetly curdled smell of breastmilk still strong on her skin.

She wondered what Chance needed to talk about. Had there been another development? If their hypothesis was correct, then it was almost time. The bridge that had brought her across was opening again. She didn’t know if she could believe it. But she had to hope. It was all she had left. Besides the family she’d built—here—beyond the waffle gardens surrounding the honeycomb structures of the clan-connected houses where Calliope had been living for almost six months, the pueblo stretching miles onward. Throughout the winter the land had remained warm; the brief freeze they’d encountered had cleared the earth for new growth, and the weather had remained temperate since. She’d known New Mexico to venture below freezing most nights and many days from November through March. But this winter she’d spent in Zuni had shown the land itself to be the real trickster, and the pueblo was overflowing.