They’d met in the basement of his house; she wouldn’t have been allowed in his kiva, and there was no other place they were safe from prying ears. On shelves lining the walls, hundreds of ko’ko, carefully carved and colorfully painted statues of their myriad gods. She looked for the Suuke pair that had almost killed her, that had killed Amy. She couldn’t find them. A tabby cat had followed them down the basement steps and was rubbing itself against Calliope’s legs, purring. She nudged it away but it wouldn’t budge. She needed answers. How could her child have been transformed into a rock inside her belly? How could anyone else have been transformed? What was happening to the land? It made no scientific sense. Chance had told her to trust the stories. Fine. What were the stories?

Arlen had laughed wryly at her demands. He spoke to Chance in Zuni, and Calliope had the distinct impression he was making some joke at her expense. But then he said, “Though we don’t normally share religious secrets with women, that is not our way, I will tell you what I know.” She still didn’t know what Chance said to convince Arlen.

When he first told her what was happening, she thought he was making fun of her again. How could it have been true? But then he had repeated the words from her dream, the words the Spirits had sung the night after she gave birth. He said, “Mother Earth is a protective mother; she shields her people. When her children, our ancestors, first left her four-chambered womb and came to the surface of her body, to this Sky World, she grieved. She wanted them back inside of her, where she could keep them safe. And these millions of years, what destruction people have wrought. What disrespect they’ve shown her sacred flesh. We Zuni have always known that when Mother Earth has had enough, she would shake her troubles off. She would shake her troublemakers off. Our great Mother has all the power she needs.”

She sat on one of several wooden chairs, to keep from wobbling to the floor, and the cat jumped into her lap; it kneaded her dress with its claws, scratching her. She lifted it and set it on the floor. It jumped up again. She petted the damn cat to keep it from scratching her. The Spirits in her afterbirth fever dream had told her she would know when the Earth had used her power. She felt shaky, dizzy. Her voice hoarse, she asked, “But where is everyone else? When my family disappeared, where did they go?”

“Don’t you see? When our Mother shook her troublemakers off, she took us with her.”

Calliope glanced at Chance, who nodded reassuringly.